Poonachi: A Goat’s Life That Mirrors Our Own

Let me be clear from the start. Poonachi by Perumal Murugan is not a cute animal story. Not a heartwarming tale about a pet goat.

This is allegory. Sharp, unflinching social commentary disguised as a simple narrative about a goat’s life.

It’s about power. About control. About how we treat the vulnerable. About systems that call exploitation, care and cruelty normal.

If you read it as just a story about a goat, you’re missing the point entirely. Because Poonachi’s life mirrors the lives of women, the poor, the powerless. Everyone who exists at the mercy of systems and people who own them.

It’s quiet. Spare. No melodrama. But it will wreck you if you’re paying attention.

The Beginning

A poor cattle herder receives a gift. A baby goat, handed to him by a mysterious giant. The gift is deliberate, given to kindness rather than wealth.

The couple names her Poonachi. And she becomes the center of their household, filling a space left empty after their human daughter married and moved away.

That moment when Poonachi is first handed over, Murugan describes it perfectly. It’s a burden. Suddenly you’re responsible for this fragile life. It’s weight before it’s joy.

At first, it felt like a hammer had grazed his hand; the next moment he found a flower in his palm.

That’s parenthood, isn’t it? Not the romantic version we tell ourselves. The real version. Responsibility arrives before you’re ready. You don’t choose to love, you just find yourself carrying this weight and somehow joy grows alongside it.

Poonachi doesn’t replace their daughter. But she fills the quiet. Gives them something to care for. Something that needs them.

A Goat Who Represents So Much More

As you follow Poonachi’s life, you start seeing the patterns. The allegory becomes impossible to miss.

She receives sexual attention she didn’t ask for. From male goats who see her as available, as theirs to pursue.

She becomes a mother not because she chose it but because that’s what happens when you’re female and fertile.

Her existence gets defined by usefulness. How much milk she produces. How many kids she births. Her value measured entirely by what she can give.

She has no voice over her own body. No say in what happens to her.

Sound familiar?

Perumal Murugan never hits you over the head with this. He just shows you Poonachi’s life and lets you see the parallels yourself.

This is what it’s like to be a woman in certain societies. To be poor. To be powerless. To exist at the mercy of those who own you, control you, decide what your body is for.

The Other Goats As Society

There are other goats in the story. Kalli, Semmi, their offspring. Each one represents something.

Different responses to being controlled. Different survival strategies.

Some submit completely. Accept their fate without question. That’s just how things are.

Some comply but with resentment. Going through motions while quietly hating it.

Some resist in small ways. Test boundaries. Push back where they can.

Through these goats, Perumal Murugan shows how power works. How it makes people behave. The different ways we respond to being trapped in systems we didn’t create and can’t escape.

Power Flowing Downward

The hierarchy in Poonachi is crystal clear.

The government controls the poor. Welfare schemes exist but somehow the people who need them most have to get it only by bowing down. The system runs smoothly for those with money and connections. For everyone else, it’s barriers and permissions and dependence.

Humans control animals. Decide when they eat, where they go, who they mate with, when they die.

Power always flows down. From government to people. From people to animals. From those who have to those who don’t.

And at every level, the powerful call it care. Call it natural. Call it the way things should be.

Perumal Murugan doesn’t rage about this. He just shows it. Quietly. Matter of factly. Like of course this is how it works.

That restraint makes it hit harder.

The Question About Lambs

There’s this moment where Poonachi notices lambs. How they always keep their heads down. Never look up.

And she wonders if that’s why they’re not tied up like goats are. Because they don’t need to be tethered. They’ve already learned to stay in their place.

Not knowing you’re bowed. Not realizing you’re controlled. Is that freedom? Or just another kind of captivity?

The book doesn’t answer. Just asks the question and lets it sit there, uncomfortable.

Because isn’t that how systems maintain themselves? By making control feel normal. By teaching people not to look up. Not to question. Not to even realize they’re trapped.

Brief Freedom in the Forest

At one point, Poonachi experiences something like freedom. Untethered in the forest. No rope. No boundaries. Just open space.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

But here’s what’s surprising. She misses the herd more than she misses her care givers. The collective matters more than any one person’s attention.

That complicates the whole idea of freedom, doesn’t it?

Because safety and belonging come with constraints. Complete independence means isolation. You can’t have both.

The book doesn’t tell you which to choose. Just shows you the tension between them.

Love Without Agency

Poonachi experiences love. Affection from her owners. Attention from male goats. Bonds with other animals.

But she never gets to choose any of it.

Love happens to her. Motherhood happens to her. Her fertility brings wealth to her owners and that becomes expectation.

Her body stops being hers and becomes an asset. Something that produces value for others.

And even the affection she receives becomes conditional. Tied to her usefulness. When she’s productive, she’s treasured. What happens when that changes?

Perumal Murugan shows how even genuine care can be corrupted by greed. How love shrinks when it’s tangled up with ownership and profit.

When Victims Become Idols

As Poonachi’s fertility brings prosperity to the household, something shifts.

She gets revered. Celebrated. Treated with special care.

But she’s still controlled. Still exploited. Still unable to make choices about her own life.

The book is critiquing something we do all the time. We worship suffering. We glorify sacrifice. We celebrate victims while continuing to victimize them.

What Kind of Creatures Are We?

That’s the question running through this entire book.

What kind of creatures are we when we call control as care? When we call exploitation as destiny? When we celebrate sacrifice while demanding it?

When we build entire systems based on ownership and hierarchy and convince ourselves it’s natural? It’s just how things work?

When we tether living beings and then praise them for accepting their ropes?

Perumal Murugan doesn’t answer. He just holds up the mirror through Poonachi’s life and asks you to look.

The Writing

Perumal Murugan’s prose is spare. Simple. Almost documentary in its tone.

He’s not trying to manipulate your emotions with flowery language or dramatic scenes. He just observes. Records. Shows you what happens.

The devastation comes from accumulation. Small moments building on each other. Quiet details that add up to something overwhelming.

There’s no melodrama. No big tragic scenes designed to make you cry. Just the steady, relentless reality of Poonachi’s existence.

And somehow that restraint makes it hit harder than any manipulation would.

Who Should Read This

You’ll probably connect with this if you:

• Appreciate allegorical fiction
• Want books that make you think about power and systems
• Can handle books with no easy answers or comfort
• Are familiar with Perumal Murugan’s other work
• Like observational writing
• Want social commentary that doesn’t preach
• Can sit with uncomfortable truths

You might struggle with it if you:

• Need hopeful or uplifting endings
• Want fast paced plot driven stories
• Are looking for cute animal tales
• Want clear resolutions

This is a book for readers who can handle bleakness. Who don’t need fiction to make them feel better. Who want literature that reflects reality even when reality is cruel.

What You’ll Take Away

After finishing Poonachi, you won’t be able to look at systems the same way.

You’ll notice how control gets disguised as care. How exploitation gets called destiny. How we convince ourselves that hierarchy is natural.

You’ll think about all the ways we treat the vulnerable. Women. The poor. Animals. Anyone with less power.

You’ll see the patterns Perumal Murugan showed you everywhere. In laws that sound protective but are really controlling. In praise that comes with strings attached. In systems that benefit some while trapping others.

And you’ll sit with that question. What kind of creatures are we?

The book doesn’t give you an answer. Doesn’t tell you how to fix things. Doesn’t offer hope that it will get better.

It just shows you how things are. And leaves you with the weight of that knowledge.

My Thought About The Book

If Poonachi Stayed With You

If Poonachi stayed with you because of how it exposes power, control, and lives reduced to utility, you may also want to revisit One Part Woman, where social systems wound individuals quietly through marriage, silence, and ritual rather than ownership. The same discomfort runs through To Kill a Mockingbird, where innocence is crushed not by overt cruelty alone, but by normalized injustice and systems that protect power over the vulnerable. For a non-fiction parallel that shows how structural inequality shapes lives from childhood onward, The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter echoes similar questions of agency, survival, and how poverty leaves little room for choice. And if what unsettled you most in Poonachi was how affection slowly shrinks into usefulness, Still Bleeding From the Wound captures that same quiet ache of ordinary lives carrying wounds that never quite heal.

A Few Questions You Might Want to Ask Before Reading This Book